Wish You Were Here
by The Amazing Maurice
Summary: A little way in the future, a boy goes on a --slightly impromtu-- late-night stroll, and comes across a scene that gives him, let us say, a little perspective. FINISHED AT LAST! Go me!
1. Cold Comfort

Wish You Were Here  
  
Anthony ran across the grounds, hoping against hope that the pounding of his feet would drown out the jeers from behind him. It sort of worked. After a while, his running feet on the squelchy ground were all he could hear, but his head still /rang/...  
  
*What did I do? What did I DO?*  
  
He came to a stop at last when he could no longer run, and found himself to be at the edge of the forbidden forest. He had to physically stop himself from turning and running back. Instead, he planted his heels and wrapped his arms around himself; and, watching his breath curl away into the cold night air, he reminded himself (not without considerable vehemence) that if he went back they'd tear him to pieces. He wished he'd remembered his cloak. It was very damp and chilly out here. Then again, there wasn't much time to think of necessities when you had a pack of boys, each one twice the size of you, baying for your blood. Your /half/ blood. Your /common/ blood. *Your filthy, dirty, muddy blood...*  
  
So, as he had nothing else to do, he walked a little way (very tentatively, utterly aware as he was of the stories the headmistress told them all, and the severe warnings she gave concerning anyone straying near them), and came suddenly to the edge of a little, inoffensive-looking thicket. It was nestled under the doughty boughs of the forest's usual monstrous oaks, but not choked by them; strangely serene, as if nothing fearful ever came here.  
  
He stepped between the slender trees, and touched the trunk of one, marvelling at the smoothness of its white bark. He looked up at its silver leaves and golden flowers, and realised with a thrill of fantasy that its colour was no trick of the moonlight. For a while, he simply stood, looking at the marvellous trees, lost in his own memories; remembering things half a short lifetime ago, climbing trees he shouldn't, getting covered in scratches, getting leaves in his hair, feeling joyful and timeless.  
  
(By now, you may note that his thoughts were no longer ones of bitterness or fear. This is from no enchantment other than that of his own mind's: intense whimsy and wonder can do that to a person.)  
  
He looked down at last, and realised his feet had carried him to a small clearing. By the slight glow that seemed to emanate from the - most wondrous - trees, he saw many markers of stone, covered in ivy and moss. From here, he could not see what was engraved in them, but he knew from their lay, and from the cairns of stone they headed, that they were graves. However, this was not what made him stop in his tracks and stifle a gasp; no, what did that was the fact that his Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was standing in front of the middle stone, apparently lost in thought.  
  
Anthony ducked behind one of the beautiful trees, cursing silently. Upon seeing his teacher he had suddenly remembered why he was out here in the first place, and that it was cold, and night, and past curfew. His hindbrain was telling him to run like a jackrabbit and damn the consequences, because this was obviously a personal and private moment. However, his higher brain was telling him to stay exactly where he was; partly because he was wary of marauding classmates; partly because if his teacher caught him he was unlikely to be appreciative of any excuses (and of catching the professor in a moment that, by someone like him, might be seen as weak); but mostly out of rabid curiosity. This was a side of his DADA teacher that he had not known existed.  
  
The argument was ended abruptly, and perhaps luckily, by a simple narrative convention. It was at this moment, maybe by some subconscious adherence to his hindbrain's urgings, that Anthony's right foot moved back, entirely of its own volition, and - wouldn't you know it, in a forest, too - it met a twig, which snapped. Loudly.  
  
*Oh, buggerbuggerbuggerbuggerbastard! Argh!*  
  
Cringing so badly that it was possible that he might actually have been shrinking, Anthony saw through guilt-squinched eyes as the professor's bowed head snapped up, eyes flashing angrily. When they set on the cowering Anthony, the boy thought his teacher might actually draw his wand and curse him. It certainly hadn't escaped his notice that the professor's hand went - apparently automatically - to his side.  
  
Anthony stumbled hurriedly forward, an apology spilling from him before he even knew his mouth was open. "I'msorryprofessorIdidn'tmeanto-" at this point he tripped over his own tongue and was forced to start more coherently. "I didn't know you were here professor, I really didn't mean to, to..." He trailed off, ensnared in a gimlet gaze that seemed to fill the world.  
  
His teacher did not remove it from him, nor did it soften even the slightest, but at last it seemed he was allowed to look away, and so he did. The professor spoke then; his voice was quiet, but glacially cold.  
  
"What are you doing here, child."  
  
It wasn't a question, you notice. It truly was a statement, a knowledge of what the future would hold. And what that would be was a damn good excuse, boy, or heaven help you.  
  
Flushing wish shame and guilt, Anthony stammered, "There were some boys... they were chasing me... I, I ran outside so they wouldn't find me, and I ended up here. I didn't mean to disturb you, professor, truly I didn't - I didn't know you were here!"  
  
The professor looked deeply unimpressed, and colder than ever, but apparently his explanation had been enough. He looked at the ground, and then at the mounds in the glade. Anthony followed his gaze with burning (though, he knew, ill-advised) curiosity - and then his teacher's eyes snapped back to his own, making him gasp. After a tense moment, the professor spoke.  
  
"What do you know about the War of the Phoenix, boy?" 


	2. A Green Field

For a moment, Anthony was so surprised that he honestly could not speak. After the moment had lengthened almost to passing, he spoke at last. "W- well, sir, I know that it ended, um, about twenty years ago-"  
  
"Seventeen. To the day," the professor corrected curtly.  
  
Feeling that it would lengthen his life-span considerably to keep going, Anthony followed this up. "And there was a bad wizard called V- Volde-"  
  
He stopped, unable to say it and greatly surprised at this. True, he had never tried, but his parents had always told him to never believe all that 'you-know-who' nonsense. He attempted to glare at his traitorous tongue, which resulted in a twitch at the corners of his teacher's mouth.  
  
"Voldemort," he said softly, looking back at the graves. "Yes, boy, you are correct. He was a-" again that twitch, which made Anthony feel, to his own immense curiosity, simultaneously stupid and pleased; "- a very 'bad wizard'. And a powerful one, too. He was nearly immortal, did you know that, boy? Avada Kedavra would not fell him - well, it could, but he'd just be back again in another decade. More lives than a cat, and as indestructible as a cockroach."  
  
"I didn't know that, sir, no," Anthony said quietly. This seemed even more of a private moment than he had first considered. These were obviously bitter memories, and long-buried ones.  
  
The professor regarded him again, the stern look more contemplative than harsh. "Say on, boy. Is that all you know?"  
  
"No, sir," Anthony said, quickly. He racked his brain for the details that his father and uncle had always told him. "The final battle was here," he said slowly. "Over there," he pointed through the beautiful trees, "by the lake. Harry Potter finished him. And professor Granger was there, and... Ron Weasley? And the teachers were there, too... they called them..." he faltered. Damn, his brain had petered out. At a time like this! He could usually recall it all off the top of his head...  
  
"The Order of the Phoenix."  
  
Anthony, who had been lost in furious rumination, jerked his head up suddenly. The voice had been so soft that he was not sure he had actually heard it. He looked at his teacher in confusion, trying to discern whether his ears had in fact been deceiving him... but no, he decided, looking at his teacher's profile, he had heard correctly. "Sir?"  
  
Anthony barely stopped a flinch as the professor's sharp gaze seared him again.  
  
Looking hurriedly at his feet, Anthony decided that the best way to avoid the gimlet gaze was to keep going. He managed to mumble, "Yes, sir, that was it. The Order of the Phoenix." He balanced his chances, and put in, quietly, "I heard some of the students died. And some of the teachers, too."  
  
This time Anthony couldn't have stopped the flinch if he'd had a full-body bind put on him, coming to the instant (though blindingly obvious) conclusion that this had been entirely the wrong thing to say. Pinned under the steely weight of his professor's Look (never before had anything been more deserving of the capital letter), Anthony felt as if every minute detail of his mind was being flayed away for speculation.  
  
"Really," the professor snarled. "Is that what you heard? And do you know their names, boy? Do you know who they were?"  
  
Anthony felt about an inch tall. No, he had no idea who those people really were, though he had a feeling some were buried beneath those mounds. As such, he had no right to be here. This was a place of mourning, and of remembrance for those who could. But this was before his time. He was wise enough to know that this was no place for him.  
  
"No, sir," he said, his voice as small as he felt.  
  
The gaze did not lift, and it did not lessen in intensity, but the anger was slowly replaced by an expression that Anthony could only describe as bitterness. The glare was, very slowly, replaced with a faraway look that he had not known his teacher was capable of.  
  
"Then let me teach you, boy," he said quietly.  
  
****  
  
The professor moved silently towards the boy, noticing him stiffen, and then passed him by, through the thicket of beautiful trees; they had the curious effect of calming and heartening him, while terrifying and cowing other parts of him that still lingered long after. Strangely, though not at all surprisingly, the discomforting feeling always centred on his left forearm. After a tense second (which he totally ignored, of course), he heard the boy follow.  
  
He stepped out onto... oh, he would forever think of it as the battlefield. He hadn't had a clue, then, what side he was really on. He'd thought he was already decided, but always there was something nagging at him, telling him that maybe it wasn't so clear-cut. Until it came to the last battle, which no-one had been prepared for; then, it had been truly decided.  
  
He stopped at the edge of the lake, trying without success to quash the surge of horrific memories that always assailed him here. He held them back just long enough to grit a sentence out to the boy standing, bewildered, next to him.  
  
"Here. This is where Hagrid died." And he closed his eyes.  
  
The Potter boy had been stock still for a moment, and then in a blur of movement was at the fallen half-giant's side, shaking him in a terrible urgency to wake he who could not be woken; for it was clear he was dead. Three killing curses, shouted in gleeful unison, had seen to that.  
  
Another, taller, black shape had sprinted through the chaos towards him, pulling him from danger with a deceptive strength for one so thin and generally unhealthy-looking. Potter, typically, fought to return to his friend's side, and had nearly succeeded when the man's other hand clamped upon his other shoulder and forcibly turned him to meet his eyes. "Let me go!" Potter had screamed, seemingly heedless to the tears streaking down his face, or of the bedlam around them. "Let me go!"  
  
"Leave him, boy! You can come back to him later. He's dead, you are of no use to him now. The rest need you to fight."  
  
"What's the point?!" the boy screamed. "If they're all going to die anyway, just because of me, then what's the bloody point?! We may as well give up now!"  
  
It had been the wrong thing to say; this man had no time or tolerance for pity or doubt. Eyes burning with a fire and ferocity that would have made a full-grown lion stop in its tracks, the man said, in a voice like stone, "You will not give up. We are not going to; and you have no excuse in your self-pity. Not everyone here today will die unless you leave them to. We will fight until either we or they are all dead, because the alternative is unthinkable." And he slapped the boy's dropped sword into the trembling hand and leapt back into the fray.  
  
The one who watched them did so with a strangely detached feeling. He still was not sure what his feelings were, and from behind the wall, huddled with the younger children, he watched. When he had first seen the man break ranks with the other side, to step to Dumbledore's side with ice in his stare and fire in his hand, the boy's primary thoughts had been of great confusion. Not angry, betrayed bewilderment, which he had expected in a situation like this, but of honest confusion, as if he could not quite conceive of what was happening. Had he been aware of the attack, he would have been right there in the ranks, but as it was, he was just another one of the children who watched as the headmaster (the old fool, he amended quickly) and all the heads of house threw up a firewall to protect them. He had looked it up later. Those of light would be able to part the flames just long enough to pass unharmed, but anyone of evil would perish.  
  
All he knew at the time was that there were many children of eleven and twelve years who could not protect themselves should they need to. And while he was no fool Gryffindor, he would not leave any of his own house to die.  
  
"Professor?"  
  
The tremulous voice mercifully broke through his thoughts; he could practically feel the glazed look sliding from his eyes. Turning his stern face towards the boy who stood at his side, who now gazed back with far less fear than before, he felt he should have been annoyed, but he felt a great need to teach this boy. Against the protests of his teacherly hindbrain, he moved on, until they stood on a little hillock.  
  
"There to the east is where the Death Eaters marched on us. There in the West," he turned and pointed, "is where the dark creatures came..."  
  
The battle was at its height, both sides evenly matched only because many of the students had broken through the firewall to fight alongside their teachers; though, occasionally, it was to fight alongside the Death Eaters. The watching boy still sat behind the barrier, undecided and afraid. One of the smaller girls was crying, so he did his best to hush her. This earned him fish-eyed looks from the others, but he just shrugged defensively and turned away.  
  
And then a cry went up, and all looked to the West - for there stood Voldemort, arms raised and eyes triumphant, and before him rose a great tumult of chaos and horror. Harpies swept in a foul cloud across the bloody sky; great black wolves tumbled across the torn ground; slimy, worm-like dragons roared and stamped; trolls dragged their clubs behind them; and all manner of dark beasts poured forth in a torrent of darkness. This impression may have had something to do with the setting of the sun behind them, but it was no less terrifying a sight for all the logic in the world. 


	3. A Cool Breeze

The professor stood on the little hill, oblivious to his surroundings and yet, it seemed, so very aware. His eyes were closed, and Anthony wasn't sure whether he should be there or not, because his teacher had not spoken for the longest time; but something kept him right where he was. Perhaps it was fear, perhaps intuition, but it felt more like... not curiosity, it was so much stronger than that. I felt like he had no right not to know. The professor had given him the impression that it was a sin to be ignorant of this, and despite his misgivings (to put it very mildly), a small, hitherto silent part of his mind said *yes, we must know*.  
  
It felt very strangely like a betrayal not to, although Anthony couldn't for the life of him say why.  
  
****  
  
He remembered...  
  
He'd never seen him scared before. He was always fierce, stubborn, unafraid. In hindsight, that really should have been a hint. But no matter. What mattered was the wall of beasts boiling up the hillside against the setting sun. Night was falling, in every way imaginable, and he was sitting behind a firewall, not because he was afraid to die but because he just did not know which side to fight for. So he simply watched.  
  
The fight was not attractive. It was not organised. He had always thought that war would be a pretty thing, and for some reason, he always thought it would be one of the cleanest ways to die; simple Avada Kedavra from both sides, and all would fall. But hardly anyone used the killing curse here. He supposed that it must be too difficult to do for too long - instead, both sides hurled hexes for the most part, sometimes fireballs, and many even had... he winced in distaste... weapons. And so the battle was bloody, and hideous. There had been patches of snow on the ground contrasting with the new grass, but now all that was there was mud and a pink slush.  
  
He could see Madam Pomfrey running ragged, the dead and the dying almost too many for her and the house-elf nurses to attend to. He saw many of the older children sitting with her, brewing healing potions and antiseptics. He looked detachedly at the mounting dead, wondering morbidly if there were any there he knew. Oh, look, it was Sinistra, she was gone. and Trelawney, she had fallen running away. Pansy was there, and he blinked, surprised at the indifference he felt. Many Slytherins had fallen, but there were even more Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs. The Ravenclaws, unsurprisingly, were mostly the ones helping out with the impromptu infirmary. He could see Granger there, too, and that surprised him until he saw who she was tending to. Ah. Weasel, naturally. Potter would, obviously, be fighting like the good, pure little bastard he was.  
  
He couldn't hear anything but screaming and sobbing, and the soft crackling of the protective flames. And then, as the dark creatures rose up, there was a sudden hush.  
  
Everyone looked to the East.  
  
That was the thing he remembered, afterwards. Everyone looked to the East.  
  
And again, the spell was broken and he was brought crashing back to reality. His eyes snapped open, and he looked to the East now. Then he looked at the boy who stood at his side; Anthony looked at him with something burning in his eyes. It took him a moment to recognise it for what it was: a desire for knowledge.  
  
He pointed a slender finger in the direction of his gaze.  
  
"There, where the forest meets the horizon. The heads of house stood there, and the creatures of the forest came to stand with them. They wanted to fight for their home, after all."  
  
It was one of the most vivid images he carried with him from that night: Dumbledore standing straight and tall in challenge, his professors at his sides. It was strange how all the animals seemed to gather to those most like them. All the winged creatures gathered to McGonagall, the raptor birds, the bats, the griffins, and the hippogriffs; for a moment, as she stood with an owl on her hand and her steel grey hair loose in the wind, she seemed so like her namesake that it was as if the very Gods of old presided over this day.  
  
Flitwick gathered to him all the little creatures, the ones that never seemed to matter much until they were backed into a corner and bared their little teeth at last, refusing to back down no matter what the odds.  
  
A great cracking sound rent the air - the trees themselves were moving! And they grew legs and heaved themselves out of the ground, and gathered around Sprout; and at her ankles gathered foxes, and badgers, and wolves, and all manner of creatures who would protect their warrens and holes to the very last.  
  
And there he stood, glaring into the ranks of Death Eaters, challenging them with but a look. And at his heels there came the creeping things; the creatures that were named dark by those who did not understand. The Acromantulas came, furious at the death of their leader's great friend. The serpents came, too, the ones that had not flocked to the Dark Lord. All the things that had seemed evil were now going to prove themselves to be, if not on the side of light, then at least against the dark.  
  
The Centaurs came with bows and arrows, lining up in ranks a hundred strong. Unicorns stood, heads lowered, ready to charge.  
  
And then with a roar of challenge, the two sides sprang forward and met.  
  
"The battle started anew, then. Many more were killed, and many creatures on both sides with them."  
  
"How did we win, professor?"  
  
He turned sharply to look at the boy, who looked at him with such an honest, innocent curiosity that he could not deny him an honest answer.  
  
"We did not win, boy. They simply lost first."  
  
It was bedlam. More than once a Death Eater or a dark creature crashed into the firewall, only to be consumed by the flames upon contact, dying with a horrible piercing shriek. It stank behind the firewall; it smelled of burning flesh, of blood, and of the reminder that not all the children had as strong or indifferent a countenance as he, and more than one had thrown up or pissed themselves in fear. It was a horrible reminder of what they were: children, nothing more. And out there were their teachers, fighting for their lives, and more than a few of their classmates.  
  
Somewhere amidst the confusion, there was a sudden hush. Enemies, man and beast, stopped and turned. A ripple had passed over all those of darkness, as if they had suddenly stopped and almost been caught in a swoon.  
  
There was laughter from the centre of the field. Not... evil laughter. Childish laughter. Hysterical laughter. And then there was a hush, in which all that could be heard was the ripple of flames, and the whisper of the wind, and the sobbing pant of an exhausted boy; and then there was silence.  
  
The wind strengthened to a brief gust that went through the field, and blew up a great cloud of ash, and carried it away into the West.  
  
Voldemort was gone.  
  
And then a cry went up, and everything that was dark, instead of cowering and fleeing in terror, seemed to grow with the strength of fury and unleashed a new wave of wrath upon the ravaged field, and the teachers, who had barely managed to remain standing during the initial fight, were now too exhausted to resist on their own. They fled through the firewall, where they might be safe for a while. But the boy who watched could see that even keeping that up was draining them. Dumbledore looked exhausted and so old and frail that his heads of house rushed to his side to support him. McGonagall was bleeding from a long cut on her temple, and had several small injuries. Flitwick was still conscious despite the fact that he now resembled a bad of broken sticks; anyone could see that there was terrible internal damage. Sprout was dead. And Snape. Snape held up Dumbledore as if his own life depended upon the old man's. He was covered in blood, and obviously exhausted; he looked badly injured. He had been fighting with a reckless abandon that had shocked the boy who watched with its violence and ferocity.  
  
He could see others, now - the ones who had fought along side the teachers. There were... many of the Weasleys; and dozens of people that he didn't recognise. Lupin, their old DADA teacher, the werewolf; he looked badly hurt, and the man holding him up was... Sirius Black? What the... of course, of course the boy knew that he hadn't been responsible for the crimes he was accused of - his name was spat with hatred by all the Death eaters - but he hadn't thought that they knew that. Only half the students that had gone through the wall had come back.  
  
And there, through the firewall, carried limp in the arms of a palomino centaur, was Perfect Potter. But... he didn't look so perfect anymore. In fact, he... didn't look quite alive.  
  
"But Harry Potter survived, didn't he, professor? He's a top auror, isn't he?"  
  
"Yes, he lived. But many died, boy. That wasn't the end." 


	4. Hot Ashes

Anthony stood next to his teacher with what felt like ice in place of his heart. The worlds spoken to him were curt, brief, succinct; but such images were in there, oh, so many, and so much clearer and more frightening for the cool detachment with which they were spoken.  
  
But then he shook himself - he thought of the Deputy Headmistress, and the famous Auror duo of Potter and Weasley, and thought that there was no way they could have endured so much that was so awful, if they were barely more than children at the time. But the last words had stopped him cold, and something in the back of his head told him, yes, they could, just not very well. And now that treacherous little thought wanted to know how...  
  
His voice, when it finally made its way out of his throat, was very small.  
  
"It wasn't?"  
  
****  
  
He felt almost like laughing. The boy wanted to know? Was it that? And he felt a tug at the corners of his mouth, and a wave of bitterness welling up almost painfully in his chest. The boy's voice held a terrible curiosity in it, and so he would, of course, oblige.  
  
He didn't really hear the words that he spoke. There was little conscious thought involved in the clinical transcription of events - all was turned inward on his memories...  
  
The watching boy was among those who scrambled towards the teachers in the flickering firelight like drowning men to rafts, and with exactly the same mad desperation and single-minded determination for something, anything, to cling to. The adults were not grieving their fallen, he noticed; they were too busy trying not to die themselves. By the restless flames he could make out his Head of House as he tipped something down Flitwick's throat, while Madam Pomfrey worked on the tiny man's shattered ribs. The watching boy looked upward as a screech from somewhere above shattered the star-vaulted heavens; a harpie fell towards earth directly overhead, only to be incinerated twenty feet from the ground. The firewall, it seemed, worked as a fireroof as well. That was, if not quite enough to be encouraging, then at least a relief. Just as long as those damn dragons didn't try anything...  
  
As soon as the thought entered his head, he felt like kicking himself - he had forgotten a chief rule of the world; it wasn't quite magic, but it was a law of narrative flow, which was damn close. Even now, a creak of leather high above and a slow whoosh of displaced air made everyone look suddenly upwards, and a hush of fear washed over them again. They could not yet see what assailed them - the firelight may have been something to see by, but in places where it couldn't reach it only served to make the shadows deeper.  
  
But there was no mistaking what it was as a thunderous roar made the earth shake. Some of the younger children started to scream and cry, the result of which was a scramble to quiet and comfort them.  
  
The dragon was huge, even bigger than most if its lumbering silhouette was anything to go by; and the watching boy could do nothing but wonder what kind it was. The file system of his mind threw up a card at random. *Oh, I know that shape,* he thought dazedly. *It must be a Ukrainian Ironbelly... funny,* he thought, as two gleaming red orbs caught the firelight for a moment, *those eyes really do look like Voldemort's...*  
  
He noticed, frozen though he was in fear and too rigid even to move, the teachers had scrambled forwards. They now stood, side by side, with numerous aurors and other adults alongside, but they did not seem to know what to do. In the tense silence, all that was heard was the huge flap of the dragon's wings and the low flutter of the flames. Then a low, urgent voice said:  
  
"Children, listen to me. When it tries something, don't run; it will see you if you do. Stay as still and as quiet as you can. I mean it! You have to trust us, all right? You *must* trust us." Remus Lupin hadn't taken his eyes off the dragon, and his mouth had barely moved when he spoke, but for some reason, unfathomable to the watching boy, the surrounding children seemed comforted by his words.  
  
It was then that the dragon finally came into view, but what it did when it did anything at all baffled them. It seemed to turn over, hovering upright - almost on its back - in mid-air, and started to gouge at the firewall, tearing at it with its immense claws; and to the horror of all, it seemed to be working... The watching boy heard his Potions teacher say something very unteacherly under his breath.  
  
Snape turned to McGonagall; their voices were low, but the watching boy was both close enough and lucid enough to hear them. "We have to get them inside the castle," McGonagall was saying. "They'll be safe there, they-"  
  
"Safe? *Safe*?" If that firewall falls... The protective spells are gone - they fell, Voldemort tore them down, you saw that! This firewall is the last defense left, and we can barely keep that up! You honestly think mere stone will stand up to *that*?" Snape's hiss of a monologue ended with a tense wave in the direction of the grounds, and the watching boy bit back a gasp. While dividing his attention between his classmates, his teachers and the dragon (which continued to claw at the firewall with an intense concentration that he knew to be unnatural, nay, impossible in the animal) he had entirely failed to notice anything going on outside, but now he saw...  
  
Beyond the firewall, in the inky darkness, the Death Eaters were throwing hexes at it with the same single-minded fury that had possessed the dragon. They were visible by the constant inconsistent flashes of the fireballs and curses and complicated spells that were being hurled towards them; and it seemed they did not mind when one of their number was taken down by a furious acromantula or a charging unicorn. The watching boy could see the wall ripple and jump under the barrage, with what seemed like increasing intensity. Now almost all the children started screaming again, shrieking in fear - they had seen what the watching boy had, and it scared them to the core.  
  
Then the watching boy heard a hoarse, vicious voice from the other side shriek "Avada Kedavra!" There was a burst of horribly familiar green light, and for a second time seemed almost to both speed up and slow down-  
  
There was a very surprised and, he thought, rather unspectacular "Ungh" from a second year girl next to him, who fell dead in a heap at his feet.  
  
****  
  
Anthony clapped his hands over his mouth, swallowing bile. His stomach seemed to have dropped earthwards with each dispassionate, neutral word that the professor uttered, and now his insides felt horribly liquid. He looked in horror at his teacher, looking for some confirmation that he knew how horrible this was. He looked into the cold depths, turned elsewhere, inward, and he found... nothing. No emotion. His teacher, he realised, was too frozen, too locked in memories to actually comprehend the magnitude of what he was saying.  
  
Maybe it was better that way. Anthony could form his own conclusions and emotions from what was said rather than how it was said. His teacher was good at that. He remembered him casually reeling off a list of deadly toxins and examples of their use only a few weeks ago, with nary a flicker across his face to betray what he thought himself. His professional detachment made it a lot easier to think about the whole thing as distant and far away.  
  
But Anthony knew that this was no distant thing, no historical event far beyond the recall of mortal man - these wounds were very fresh, much more so than he could ever have comprehended. He knew that it wasn't professional detachment he could see in the professor's eyes, but hollowness. And still, he needed to know, because if he didn't then what incentive would children like him have to keep the dark away?  
  
Then his teacher's eyes met his, though it seemed a moment before they actually focused on him.  
  
****  
  
He shook himself almost physically from his memories, momentarily distracted by a flicker of movement at his side. He looked at Anthony, and for a moment, he wondered what the boy was doing here - where were the hexes and the Death Eaters? Where was the stench of battle? And then he remembered that it was no more than memory now.  
  
The boy's hands covered his mouth; if truth be told, he looked slightly sick. His guileless eyes were wide and horrified, but, the professor was almost pleased to note, still held a morbid need of knowledge. Good. He did not want the boy to start something - the very reason he had chosen to tell Anthony in particular was the fact that he knew that this boy was not one to make hay. Anthony wouldn't tell anybody; but he would remember what he was told this night, and someone /had/ to remember. Let the headmistress keep her policy of protecting the ickle children from the big bad world. Sometimes you needed a monster to remind you what courage was for.  
  
He mentally reviewed this statement and nearly wrinkled his nose in disgust. Courage?  
  
And then he thought, yes, because sometimes, on very rare occasions, sneakiness and subterfuge were just no substitute for that sheer enraged fearlessness that made no task insurmountable - as long as the adrenaline lasted...  
  
Outright hysteria engulfed the students left standing. A collective cry of dismay went up, and all started to scream and sob; the watching boy stood very still as the headmaster and the heads of house left standing ran to the young girl.  
  
It was, some may have been surprised to learn, the first time he had seen Avada Kedavra used that close to him. He found himself regarding the sprawled figure almost clinically; she was not someone he knew - he could vaguely remember seeing her face at a sorting ceremony, but that was all. She looked very pretty, in a young, naive sort of way. Her long chestnut hair spread around her slender face, which seemed stupidly peaceful. *She barely knew what hit her...*  
  
He vaguely registered a hushed argument going on between the three teachers, but it sounded less angry than it did scared, panicky, desperate. He dimly acknowledged the press of adults around them, including Madam Pomfrey, who felt the girl's neck and broke down there and then. And the bloody Terrific Trio came there - Weasel was limping; the Granger Mudblood (funny, how hollow and childish that sounded now) holding him up and looking all Brave Heroine-ey; and there was Perfect Potter, bringing up the rear for once, looking like a ghost...  
  
He looked up and saw, through blurred vision, the trees, the uprooted, walking, angry trees, stomp forward and knit a barricade in front of the failing firewall. His ears didn't seem to be working too well, either; snatches of conversation would float past, some heard, some unheard...  
  
"My gods, their eyes... look at their eyes..."  
  
"-didn't even know what hit her... oh, Albus..."  
  
"-they're coming through! Headmaster, they're coming!"  
  
"Their eyes! What happened to their eyes?!"  
  
"...oh, gods... I know how he did it. Headmaster! He's not gone! He's still here - not alive, he-"  
  
"Peace, Severus, calm yourself! What is it?"  
  
"The Dark Marks! -they weren't just-"  
  
What? He struggled to gain a grip on his senses; this sounded important, and if it could make that voice, that cold, smooth, velvet-over-steel voice sound so panicked and frightened...  
  
"-they bind the life-force of the bearer to him! He /shares/ their life! He's not dead yet! He's Borrowing them! He's riding their minds!-"  
  
"My gods... he's right..."  
  
"No matter yet! We have to get the children inside the castle first!"  
  
"What-!"  
  
"Don't you see? It will be easier to maintain the wards inside, the Castle will help us! EVERYONE! Get into the Great Hall! Quickly, now! Come on! Get the wounded inside first! Come on, you all know Wingardium Leviosa! Quickly now!"  
  
*Oh, gods, any minute now she's going to clap her hands and say 'chop- chop', I just /know/ it...*  
  
Then he blinked, as the world was suddenly dominated by black - odd, he didn't feel faint...  
  
"Come, mister Malfoy. They could use your help."  
  
The watching boy started, and looked up. Snape's face was pale and drawn, and there seemed to be a hell of a lot more lines around it than he remembered; but it was /his/ face, the one that, even for its penchant for subtly ripping you apart, was a strangely comforting one.  
  
"Mister Malfoy."  
  
He realised that he must have been staring. He blinked and nodded his head, and his Head of House gave a small nod and moved on. As the watching boy helped levitate a stretcher - he didn't notice who was on it - he reflected that the Potions teacher could communicate a lot with that one small gesture, more than the other professors could with a sentence, and he only seemed himself when he was impatient or angry.  
  
*Do not meddle in the affairs of Slytherin wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.* He giggled, somewhat nervously, and then - after clapping a hand over his mouth and looking around to make sure no-one had heard him - hurried inside...  
  
... just as the firewall fell...  
  
  
  
Author's Notes: *ahem* I really should have done this A/N earlier, shouldn't I? And possibly a disclaimer... and thanks... Well. I believe they shall all be at the end, with a page all to themselves. Thank you for all the lovely reviews so far; by the way, I have a challenge for you: can you guess where I get my chapter titles from? The title should be an enormous whopping hint. I believe the next chapter will be the last - I already have the pivotal scene written out. No, really! The plot bunny attacked me in the middle of Biology class, and didn't let go until I'd written it all down. Then it turned out it was in league with the Anal Retentive Beetle (you can guess the place /that/ little bugger crawls up to make his home), which did not desist its torment until I'd written three damn drafts. No actual school work got done that day. Bastards. 


	5. Author's Grovelling Apologies

Author's Grovelling Apologies:  
  
Hello, all. I am afraid to say that for the next three months, I have to work my tail off at school to pass the IBP maths course and as a result, Wish You Were Here has suffered terrible neglect. I can't make any promises, but I hope to get the next chapter up for the weekend. I know, I know I said it'd be updated quickly, but my maths teacher (the fact that her name is Mrs. Coulter has cemented my fear of her; all she needs is a golden monkey and she's as close to Philip Pullman's character as makes no difference) is making things turn out otherwise.  
  
Hang on! I won't abandon this, that I *can* promise. I will finish this, and there will be many other fics afterwards, just... hang in there. And thanks for the lovely reviews so far! 


	6. A Smile from a Veil

Anthony snapped out of his horrified reverie just in time to notice that his DADA teacher was several feet from him; he had moved away and was walking back in the general direction of the forest with long, steady strides. Anthony, after a few aborted attempts to sense any feeling in his legs (or anywhere, for that matter), jogged after him with a numb, stumbling gait.  
  
It did not even occur to him, by now, that he was not welcome. Even if it had, he wouldn't have cared. He needed to know about this, there was no way he could stay away now! Not while the tale was incomplete.  
  
If the professor noticed the boy's presence at his side at all, then he did not acknowledge it. After a while, however, he began to speak again. The faraway look remained in his eyes, which glittered like the distant stars above them. Anthony shivered, wrapping his arms around himself, and concentrated on the voice.  
  
****  
  
He only actually noticed that he had moved at all when a chill gust of night air rustled past his temples, giving him the curious sensation that the tips of his ears had just been dipped in cold water. It blew around the back of his neck, where the fine hairs stood on end, in some mockery of an attempt to retain body heat. He blinked his eyes, as if coming out of a trance, and then registered his legs, which seemed to be moving entirely of their own volition. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a hurrying shape. He was walking. wandering, really and plunged him simultaneously back into the past.  
  
Spells rebounded off stone as all clattered noisily into the Great Hall. The watching boy (who wasn't currently watching anything except where his feet were going) was among the last to get inside; as soon as the Hall was filled, the doors swung shut, with a very final _bang_.  
  
The space left in their wake was soon filled with adults trying desperately to seal the students off from the outside world as fast as possible. That done, a group of wizards and witches split off from the rest and huddled to one side, apparently arguing ferociously. The watching boy set down the stretcher he was levitating and struggled to push towards them through the milling crowd.  
  
Draco found himself milling, actually, standing on tiptoe so that he might see any trustworthy Slytherins, because though he was big in the power sense, at seventeen he was still rather petite. He tried to call out to a third year - Baddock, yes? And then he sank back onto his heels as a nasty thought occurred to him - he wasn't a trustworthy Slytherin himself. He had made sure of that. On the Dark side, but with no proof, that was the Malfoy way, and he had upheld it to the last, and now.  
  
Now his father was trying to kill the people in this hall, and Draco wasn't sure how he felt about that.  
  
In the thick of the group were professors Dumbledore, McGonagall and Snape; Black and Lupin, Moody, and the Wonder Trio. Snape seemed to be explaining something to the rest; he couldn't hear them yet, but could see them well enough to get an impression.  
  
As Snape spoke, a curious metamorphosis occurred in everyone else's face. Their expressions started as exhausted and mildly confused, to comprehending and excited, and then, their eyes flickered to Snape's face.  
  
The watching boy... watched.  
  
It seemed something had occurred to them, and each was reacting in his or her own way. Black looked flabbergasted. Weasley looked disbelieving. Granger clapped her hands over her mouth, while her eyes filled with tears. Lupin looked surprised, and then sadly resigned. One by one, each face gained a look of shocked dismay, and then heavy acceptance. Snape, seeing this, looked irritated, and perhaps a little flustered.  
  
The watching boy was now gripped with horrible curiosity and something which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be fear. This surprised him, and then only made him push harder. He was _almost_ within earshot...  
  
McGonagall, who looked white and horrified, touched Snape's arm and said something that the watching boy _still_ couldn't hear over the noise. But whatever it was, it had not been the right thing to say. Snape drew himself up to his full, imposing height, glaring coldly at them all, and finally Draco was close enough to hear him say, with acid in his voice:  
  
"-I don't know what you're all so upset about; you have the final means to kill him, and you all look as if someone's died." And he swept past them, an expression of furious annoyance on his face, though maybe there was just a flash of sadness there - but then it was gone.  
  
Agape, the watching boy looked again at the faces of those he had left behind - Potter closed his eyes, looking stricken; McGonagall looked after her colleague's retreating back with a mixture of anger and terrible grief; and Dumbledore...  
  
Dumbledore's head was bowed, and upon his face Draco saw for a moment an expression of pain and bitterness - a horrible, horrible bitterness, which looked so foreign upon such a countenance as his that he was almost unrecognisable. In that second, the watching boy quite forgot all that his father had ever said about the Headmaster.  
  
And then the wizened head rose, and the blue eyes, which had always seemed to sparkle with an amused air of *I know something you don't know* seemed now hard as diamonds and cold as chips of ice. He exchanged a brief, terse look with McGonagall, and swept after his potions master. The watching boy followed, staying out of sight but within earshot.  
  
Snape was checking his wand, looking for imperfections. When it passed inspection, he put it back in his pocket and started checking his less sophisticated weapons - the two long knives he used most often for cutting up ingredients for his potions. He wiped the blood off of one of them, and reached for the other-  
  
It was handed to him, quite polished and clean, by Dumbledore.  
  
Snape looked at him blankly for a moment, and then slowly reached forth and took the knife.  
  
"Do you blame them?" Dumbledore asked quietly. Draco leaned forward, straining to hear.  
  
Snape turned the knife over in his hands, frowning at it. "I would... prefer... to have done with it as quickly as possible," he muttered. "Preferably before he gets to me..."  
  
"We all owe you too much, Severus, for any of us to accept this quite so readily." He rested a hand briefly on Snape's thin shoulder. "We will not, of course, let you go alone."  
  
A small, sardonic smile graced Snape's sallow face. "You're trying to make this a meaningful and dramatic last conversation, aren't you?"  
  
"It's been a long day. Allow an old man his cliches."  
  
Snape snorted inelegantly.  
  
Dumbledore brightened. "Besides, sometimes convention is a good thing."  
  
"Hah!" Snape barked, but it seemed an almost fey mood had taken him, and a madly cheerful look crossed his haggard face. He rammed the last knife into his belt and, Dumbledore by his side, turned on his heel and strode towards the door, head high and eyes hard. McGonagall looked at them and then, with the care and deliberation of some kamikaze warrior checking her weapons, pulled her steel-grey hair back, wound it into an iron-hard bun, rammed her hairpins into place, and walked after them, wand in hand.  
  
Black and Lupin exchanged a look, and strode after her, their steps in perfect sync. Moody muttered disparagingly and set of after them. Potter sighed, picked up his sword (Draco would have dearly loved to know where he'd got the thing) and followed all, his friends trailing after him.  
  
The watching boy stood dumb in confusion and no little horror as the three teachers threw open the doors and rushed out towards the Dark. What were they doing? They would die, they would be crushed, and the school would fall. They would be killed!  
  
A little voice at the back of his head reminded him that in the interim, his father would most likely be killed. To his mild disconcertion, he found he didn't actually care that much.  
  
What were they _doing_ out there?  
  
Some dormant cognitive functions began to stir, and random snatches of overheard conversation began to float back to him, like pieces of one of those infernal jigsaw puzzles (it may be noted that Draco was never very good at them) - all there, but not assembled yet. Which, as everyone who has ever even contemplated a jigsaw knows, is the hardest part...  
  
*"Their eyes! What happened to their eyes?!"...*  
  
*"...He's riding their minds..."*  
  
Something from a half-forgotten DADA lesson floated back to his mind, like an iron leviathan sliding through the half-frozen arctic sea... something about some ancient method of magic... Borrowing... riding the mind of another creature...  
  
It was only something achieved by the most powerful of mages. To put one's mind completely inside the head of another, usually an animal. Apparently one was supposed to ride it only, not steer it, but he'd never seen the logic of that. Why have that kind of power at your disposal and not use it? And then he'd realised, oh, yes, this was what the _good_ guys did... And it occurred to him that he had never actually wondered about what measures the dark lord had taken to preserve his life, and that even if he had, the Marks would not have actually occurred to him as one.  
  
****  
  
There was a sharp gasp from next to him, which might have made a lesser wizard start, but not one so cool and calm as he. This in mind, he willed his hammering heart to calm.  
  
He forced the blank look from his face and a caustic one in its place, glaring at the student by his side. The boy's eyes were huge; his hands over his mouth, looking at his teacher like a child hearing a particularly scary bedtime story. Upon this thought, the professor narrowed his eyes; this was no flippant tale, no make-believe, and he cursed whatever had possessed him to recount it. Thin-lipped and quite angry at himself, he cast his eyes on his surroundings to find some innocent object to focus on while he collected himself, and realised that they were once again near the... thicket...  
  
Oh, those damned trees... how such simple, blameless things could make him so angry and upset and yet fill him with such awe would forever be beyond him. He gazed at the strong, thick roots that snaked soothingly into the earth, to the smooth trunk with its shining white bark, to the tapering branches that stretched and spread contentedly; and so upwards, to the silver leaves, to the delicate golden flowers crowning all. He closed his eyes and breathed in the air that always seemed subtly fresher around them, somehow more healing, and try as he might, it was quelling his anger. He mustered a rueful glare at the idyll, and turned his grey eyes to the rough, almost non-existent path that lead to a calm glade full of soft moss and carved stone and swirling memories. For you and you alone I will do this, he thought. And just this once.  
  
****  
  
Anthony recovered from his shock in time to register the anger in the professor's eyes, and flinched, unsure of where this new rage had come from. The flash of anger in his eyes as they had trained on him had startled Anthony greatly, but now they turned away, and, following his gaze, he realised with surprise that their feet had lead them back to the magnificent trees. By the time he could bring himself to pull his eyes away, the anger had faded from the professor's face, and he was looking at Anthony with a sort of impatient expectation in his eyes.  
  
Anthony hoped he didn't look _too_ pleading.  
  
****  
  
Ah, the puppy-dog look. Never a favourite of his old head of house's. The professor felt his lips twist into a bitter little smile and let the painful memories flood back.  
  
They had to kill them *all*.  
  
That was their plan. That was their stupid, awful, simple bloody plan. The Dark Marks connected the bearers to Voldemort by body and mind, and Voldemort would use the latter to survive, even if his body was once again dust in the wind. Therefore, Voldemort would not be dead until all those who bore the Marks were dead.  
  
Even if the bearer was on the other side.  
  
They had a new task now, a terrible one, a damning one, not to defend but to attack, to let no Death Eater escape. In the middle of the fray, fighting like he had nothing left to lose (and to be honest, he didn't) was Snape.  
  
And when the firewall fell, when the last protection was taken away, all of them, even the little ones who could hardly turn a matchstick into a needle, surged forth.  
  
He turned to them in the silence of a lull, the flames behind him, separated from his Slytherins by a stretch of trampled ground. From the exhausted half-crouch of before, he straightened, unfolded, like a dormant dragon, like a figure carved from stone finding movement, and he towered before them. His robes were sodden with gore; his hair was swept across his face, damp with sweat and rain and blood. His thin frame heaving with exhaustion, black against the firelight, he should have been a sight to scare hell out of anyone, not least a ragged band of jittery children.  
  
But as he looked on them, his eyes burned and seemed almost to dance with a fire that had nothing to do with the flames behind and everything to do with the fact that _his_ children, every one, stood forward now with wands outstretched and eyes aflame.  
  
And then the moment broke; their injuries began to register, and the noise of battle returned. Snape turned away, to return to the battle-  
  
"Avada Kedavra!"  
  
There was a roar of green light that suffused the thin figure. Snape lifted his eyes to them, *To me, oh gods...* and then crumpled slowly to the ground.  
  
Behind him was Lucius Malfoy  
  
****  
  
Briefly, with a surprising amount of amusement as well as concern, the storyteller recognised the sound of a boy being sick.  
  
*I wholeheartedly agree with you, boy.*  
  
*****  
  
Looking triumphant, Malfoy the senior met his son's eyes. There was expectation there, a pride and anticipation.  
  
Whatever he was expecting, he didn't get it.  
  
Draco didn't move.  
  
When someone took advantage of the man's momentary surprise and shouted "Expelliarmus!" Draco still didn't move.  
  
When practically every child from Slytherin, even the little innocent ones, piled on top of Lucius and ripped him apart (quite literally, he later learned), Draco just stood and watched, impassively.  
  
And then it was over.  
  
****  
  
There was silence.  
  
"How many people are buried back there, sir?"  
  
Draco stirred, and looked at the boy.  
  
"There are many children buried in that clearing. The ones who didn't have family left to bury them," he amended. "There are five adults: Percy Weasley, may he regret his initial vacillation. Hagrid, the half-giant. Sirius Black and Remus Lupin are buried together. And Severus Snape, my old head of house."  
  
He looked appraisingly at the young man in front of him. "Mister Creevey, while not the least bit interested in the affairs of my students, I am not blind to what is directly in front of my face. I therefore give you my full permission to give as good as you get. At least attempt to find some decent friends; it never hurts to have support, and there's no shame in it. They don't even," he added generously, "have to be from Slytherin."  
  
Anthony Creevey straightened, fully intending to use his teacher's advice. "Thank you, Professor Malfoy, sir!"  
  
"Now go back to your dormitory, it's long past curfew. And don't tell a soul about this meeting!"  
  
"Yes sir!"  
  
Draco Malfoy turned on his heel and strode back to the teachers' wing, feeling inexplicably light-hearted.  
  
The End.  
  
A.N: FINISHED! By God, I actually finished it. I never intended to do that. I apologise, no, grovel on bended knee to my unfortunate reviewers. You lot were wonderful. I was going to abandon this, but for some reason I came back to it today and thought, 'hang on, this only needs a few more paragraphs and it's done!' and so it was completed. Go me!  
  
*sheepish look* And let's try to forget that it took me something like six months to update. 


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